The paper defines the preconditions of vacuum refrigerating machines occurrence and envisages the history of development of these machines beginning from unsuccessful trials at the end of 18th century to the machines on the basis of the axial compressors at the beginning of the 21st century. The description of the works of study of vacuum pump compressors application in refrigeration systems for farming sectors that were carried out at the chair “Lowtemperature engineering” n.a. P.L. Kapitsa of the Moscow polytechnic university, is given. The problems of development of refrigerating machines using water as a refrigerant are cited and possible overcoming of them by choosing an appropriate type of a vacuum pump compressor is presented.